Memories: Locking My Love In Seoul

The day before, I had just gone to watch Taenggu’s “Butterfly Kiss” concert at the KBS Busan Hall, leaving with good memories of seeing her great performances live onstage. Because the hall was considerably small and I was sitting somewhere near the front section of the hall, it was the nearest physical distance I had ever managed to get myself to her so far in my life.

The next day, I took the train back to Seoul from Busan with my sister. We only had less than one and a half days left to tour around the city before taking the plane back to Singapore. After knowing that there is a love lock zone at the N Seoul Tower, we made a last minute change of plans to our original itinerary. After checking in to our hotel at Dongdaemun and leaving our luggages in the room (a related old post about my trip in Seoul: MEMORIES: I WILL BE YOUR UNNIE), we made a quick visit to N Seoul Tower just to lock our own love locks there. While my sister was there to lock one for her relationship with her boyfriend, I was there to lock mine with Taenggu. I kept Taenggu in my mind while I was there. It took me quite awhile before deciding what to write on my love lock. It was a love lock from me to her.

The front of our love lockThe back of our love lock

When my lock was ready, I chose a nice, easy spot to lock it along with the thousands other love locks there. I got my sister to help me film the whole process. My love lock locking ceremony. Haha.

One of the photo evidence of my love lock I had taken in 2016

I also took a video of the directions to take in order to locate my love lock. It was meant for me to keep as a reference so that I could locate it more easily during my next visit and also for Taenggu to use it as a clue to find our lock if she were to visit this place by herself in the future.

Later that night, I posted all of these photos and videos on my KakaoStory, thinking that she could see and read them there herself.

After almost exactly a year later, I was prompted to write about my love lock experience in Seoul again (both on instagram and here on my blog) after seeing a video which Sooyoung posted on her instagram on 11 August 2017. It was a clip taken from an episode of her drama “알 수도 있는 사람 (People You May Know)”. The character whom she acted as was frantically trying to find their love lock at N Seoul Tower in a bid to chase an old memory with her boyfriend who had already passed away.

It was such a heart-wrenching scene to watch. In order not to fill ourselves with regrets later on like the girl in the drama, I decided to repost these photos and videos on instagram and my blog – somewhere that are more easily accessible for Taenggu to see. Rather than keeping everything to myself and then regret not being able to say what I have been wanting to say and show to her, I want to seize every opportunity to tell her everything that I can right now. Like what the words on her shirt told me, that “Someday is now”.

I have a wish, a dream, a goal. I wish for one day we could both visit this place physically together and find this baby blue love lock together, and then lock a new one together. A love lock that belongs wholly to the two of us. ❤